Monday, August 30, 2010
Restaurants Brave Church's Rolls Out Spicy Chicken in the Home of Hot Chicken
Posted by Chris Chamberlain on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 6:02 AM
There are several reasons why they chose Nashville, not the least being that they are seeking to re-establish their brand in town after their recent purchase of locally-owned fast food poultry joint Mrs. Winner's. I was lucky enough to get to sample some of the new spicier chicken with Kirk Waisner, who holds the title of (I swear I'm not making this up) Chief Chicken Officer of the corporation.
And Kirk knows his spicy chicken, since he held a similar position at Popeye's prior to making the jump over to Church's. A graduate of the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, Kirk has over 20 years of experience in the food business and has been a big fan of Nashville's version of hot chicken for a long time. He knew going in that there was no way to reproduce the fire of Prince's or Bolton's in a way that would be appropriate for fast food diners.
Instead, Kirk developed a new formula based on customer suggestions from multiple markets. Since Texas is the state with the most Church's locations, it's not surprising that the flavor profile skews a bit toward Western peppers. Apparently, sales of spicy products have increased sevenfold in the last 20 years, so Church's is trying to head where the people are pushing them.
Rather than just fire it up with cayenne pepper, the new Spicier Spicy Chicken actually uses five different peppers including chipotle, jalapeño and the big, bad habanero. To ensure that the spice is not just in the crust, chicken pieces are marinated at least twelve hours in a brine to maintain the juiciness throughout the frying process. I commented that the individual pieces seemed larger than fast food chicken I was accustomed to and discovered that Church's cuts their wings to include half of the breast.
After hand breading the marinated pieces in a batter that includes the same peppers as the brine, they are fried up with a goal of making the crust even crunchier than their original recipe. In my humble opinion, the result is a fine piece of poultry. The heat is an additive effect with layers of flavor building as you enjoy your two-piece snack. Spicy aromas invite you in, rather than burning your eyes and turning your head. The initial bites have a nice slow burn with a strong black pepper flavor in the back of your palate without numbing your lips. You'll notice the fiery orange ring of marinade has soaked into the meat, providing for heat even after you've eaten all the crunchy coating.
Grab extra napkins, because that's juice dripping down your chin, not grease. I intentionally grabbed a drumstick with a napkin and squeezed it to see how much oil would soak into the napkin. The answer was just about none. I was impressed.
Does Church's Spicier Spicy Chicken compare with Nashville hot chicken? Only in that they are both fried and chicken. Unlike after a trip to Prince's, you'll be safe to travel on an airplane within 24 hours of eating at Church's. But as a fast food option to less flavorful fried chickens, Church's has developed an excellent alternative.
Drop by any of their Nashville locations to try it out and report back here to tell us what you think.
Comments (6)
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It's amazing what a man will do given some free chicken. Even hawk the worst fried chicken known to man. Sounds like what you were served bears no resemblance to what actually comes out of those places. Yuk!
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Go give the new recipe a try and report back. I was a Popeye's man and went in with a skeptical mind. After trying Church's several times, (on my dime, btw) I'm convinced.
I used to compare Church's to the old Banquet frozen chicken dinners I made in my toaster over after college. Now it's the place I'll stop if I don't have time for a sit-down meal. Given my druthers and a full lunch hour, I'll still go to a good meat n' three, but this stuff held up to the comparison.
But WLS, I did like how you worked "hawk," "chicken" and "bears" into two sentences. Is there a hidden message somewhere?
You do know that back in the 80's and probably 90's all the Church's stores were located in ghettos and Church's was involved in a conspiracy with the government to use salt peter in their chicken to make black men sterile. I recall a story about that on 60 minutes.
BTW, no hidden messages, just awesome writing.
There's no lower bar to clear than the standard for chain fried chicken, but I tried Church's today and it was pretty good: very crispy crust, nicely building heat, moist and flavorful meat. Definitely a step above KFC.
I had that same memory about Church's locations in the 80's. Well, not the saltpeter urban legend part.
The skeleton of the beer and ciggy market on 12th and Wedgewood my daily reminder of what Church's used to be. They're better than that now.
A quick Google search came up with the fact this is not true:
http://conspiracycom.blogspot.com/2007/06/…
